Alexi's Cloak

Granting shroud as an instant-speed aura is the clever inversion here: protection auras usually want to stick around, but this one is really a one-shot trick wearing enchantment clothes. Flash lets you cast it in response the moment an opponent points removal at your creature, and the shroud it grants foils everything from spot removal to combat tricks to tap effects. The catch is structural and self-imposed: shroud cuts both ways, so the protected creature is now off-limits to your own pump spells, your own auras, your own targeted help. You buy the save by surrendering your ability to interact with the very thing you saved. That tension is what makes the rate fair on a two-mana aura that would otherwise be a near-blanket counter to most targeted answers. The flash also matters as a bluff: holding two mana with this in hand turns every attack into a question, since a would-be blocker's removal can be answered before it resolves. It is a defensive card that asks an aggressive question, and its limitation is encoded in the same keyword that gives it teeth.